


Palm, Switch, Load

by LokiOfSassgaard



Category: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-11
Updated: 2011-11-11
Packaged: 2018-05-28 06:28:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6318295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LokiOfSassgaard/pseuds/LokiOfSassgaard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four times Harry's magic got someone hurt, and one time it saved a life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Palm, Switch, Load

The trick is simple, the props are basic, and Harry has the timing down fucking perfect. Or is it perfectly? The mechanism that allows… Screw it. He’s got this thing. He knows he does. He’s been working on this one for weeks, and it’s going to be magnificent.

The trick is this: four small, brown paper bags, a metal spike on a plywood base, and one hand.

To play up the peril angle, the hand is not his. No-one cares if a magician injures himself doing a potentially dangerous and definitely ill-advised routine. Hell, some of the audience come just to see it happen. And it does happen. More than you might think. OK, so it’s not all Roy and that fucking huge fucking tiger or some trigger-happy cowboy being a bit too impressed by the magic bullet,* but it does happen. Most pro magicians insure their hands against the sort of accidents they’re likely to come across.

Accidents like the sort that involve giant metal spikes, for instance. Bu t it isn’t Harry’s hand on the line, so he’s not actually as worried as he should be.

He’s also twelve and thinks, as twelve-year-olds tend to do, that he’s God’s fucking gift to this chosen hobby of his. Which, all things considered, is about the dorkiest of dorky hobbies a kid can get into. But he’s fucking twelve. He doesn’t know that.

It’s the annual school talent show where Harry decides to unveil this new masterpiece. He’s eighth on the list, which is right between the Thriller group in their frankly terrible zombie make-up and some kid with a unicycle. As though that’s a talent worthy of showing to the entire school. What’s he got? A wheel. So what? Harry has a giant fucking metal spike.

It’s the art teacher who assists him on stage. Even though he’s promised that the trick is safe, they don’t want to risk any of the kids getting hurt. Harry doesn’t say as much, but he blames Harmony and her stupid little stunt at the fair. No-one’s ever quite got over that. But it doesn’t matter, because this trick is so much better than sawing someone in half anyway.

The misdirection and switch are timed perfectly. Mrs Carter smiles nervously as Harry holds her hand above the bag she’s chosen. Only, he reads her muscles wrong. It’s not until he’s shoving her hand down onto what should be an empty paper bag that he realises he has completely and totally fucked it up. He doesn’t even need to hear Mrs Carter scream or see the blood that is suddenly everywhere to know that he’s fucked it up. Maybe he should have practised his cold reading a bit more before trying this one in front of the entire damn school.

The rest of the talent show is cancelled, and it’s the last one the school ever holds.

* * *

After the talent show fiasco, Harmony is the only person willing to help Harry out with his tricks. Which may not be completely smart, but neither of them say anything. Both for the sake of Harry’s pride, although they don’t say anything about that either.

He got the idea for his water escape routine from Saturday Night Live of all places. Dad wouldn’t let him stay up late enough to watch whenever the magician acts were on, but Mom would always tape them for him. Which worked out better anyway, because it meant he could spend more time analysing the trick and working out how it was done.

This one was cake. He got it on the second time watching it. Well, he was pretty sure he got it right. 99%. 98%. OK, about 75% certain that he might have got it right. But 75% is still good odds, so he went with it. He didn’t have the budget or resources to modify a telephone booth so that it would remain water-tight, but he did have the next best thing: a giant fish tank that his uncle let him borrow. It’s a bit leaky in one corner, but not by enough to ruin the trick. It would take days for the thing to empty itself that way. And the trick sure as hell doesn’t take days. It takes ten minutes at most.

At first, they practise without closing the lid, until they’re both fucking certain that Harmony can hold her breath for as long as it takes Harry to find the right card. The first few times, the trick fails and she comes up after just a couple of minutes. Harry’s pissed that it doesn’t work, but he’s never been more determined to make a thing work in his admittedly short life.

Eventually, just through pure blind stupid fucking luck, they stumble on something that works. Harmony makes it through the trick, so they start going with the lid closed. She makes it through that, so Harry finally locks the lid down.

The trick lasted ten minutes on TV. They’ve never been able to get more than five out of it, but Harry’s changed the card trick to make it work. Instead of palming the card and making a secret pass to Harmony, they use a duplicate card, because they can’t work out a subtle way of getting the card into the fish tank.

And that’s fine. The trick still works. He gets it done in time, she reveals the card, and…

And the key is gone. It must have fallen out of his pocket or something. Where’s the goddamn key? Maybe if he’d mown the grass like Dad told him to, he’d be able to find it, but he can’t and he’s running over time. By now, Harmony is pounding on the glass and kicking at the lid to the tank. Water’s going fucking everywhere, and Harry can actually see her drowning in there.

He cannot get the lid open, no matter how hard he tries. The lock is too secure and the tank too well-built.

So he does the next best thing. He gets a large hammer and goes for that weird leaky corner. The entire side of the tank shatters, but Harmony isn’t drowning anymore.

Uncle Ted’s gonna be fucking furious, though.

* * *

Harry is good at magic. He’s fucking excellent at two specific sorts , though. He treats cards like they’re an extension of his own fingers, which any magician worth anything can do. He can also escape damn near anything. OK, he still has a bit of trouble with certain sorts of locks, but some locks are just like that. And straightjackets are always a fucking pain in the ass.

First off, that thing about how the escape artist has to dislocate his shoulder in order to get out? Complete bullshit. Yeah, you’ve got to be limber as hell to get out, but it’s all down to the way it’s tied up and how you hold your arms at the critical moment. Most people won’t fight the escape artist when they’re trussing him up in a straightjacket. They don’t want to be the asshole to screw up the trick in front of the audience.

Except for the ones who do want to be the asshole to screw up the trick. Harry hates those assholes. They jerk him around and tie everything so tightly that it actually makes his arms go numb. How the fuck is he suppo sed to get out of this thing if his arms are numb?

But he’s still got that annoying fucking pride that doesn’t let him tell the asshole to fuck off, and lets the guy attach the hook to his ankles. And why he still lets the guy hang him upside-down is anyone’s guess. But he does, and very shortly finds himself unable to escape and slowly losing sensation in his face. He didn’t even know you could lose sensation in your face. Maybe he’s having a stroke from being upside-down and tied too tightly. Who the fuck knows? All Harry knows is that he fucking hates the prick who put him in the straightjacket. And when he gets down, he’s gonna fucking murder the son of a bitch.

He doesn’t know if he’s running long or not. He can’t actually tell anymore, which is worrying. Usually, he’s a pretty good judge of time, but he could have been up here for five hours, for all he knows. It feels like he’s been up there for as long, anyway.

When he w akes up, he isn’t sure what’s more surprising: that he’s backstage, or that he had to wake up at all. His shoulders are fucking killing him and he feels like a team of tap dancing rhinos just used his head as a stage, so he has a pretty good idea of what happened. He decides, right then and there, that he isn’t touching a straightjacket ever again.

* * *

Harry can be called a lot of things, but he isn’t stupid. Well, OK. He can be, but he’s not stupid enough to try this with an actual gun that fires actual bullets. He considers trying with a paintball gun at first, but the prospect of having paint in his mouth, and not being able to work out how to modify the whatever it is part that holds the actual paintballs makes him change to Airsoft. Which is still pretty fucking stupid, if you think about it. Which he hasn’t. Not really.

Well. He’s thought about how to do the trick and how to set it up. And he put a hell of a lot of thought into modifyin g the gun. He just hasn’t thought about the fact that he’s now given this gun to Chutney with the instructions to shoot him in the mouth.

Which is exactly what Harry is thinking about right now. He’s thinking about whether or not Chutney has ever even fired a gun before, and how accurate these Airsoft guns are.

He’s also thinking about the nine people who have died trying to do this goddamn stupid fucking trick. None of them did it with Airsoft, though. Although, one guy did get killed when he was shot with a piece from his own magic wand.

Harry hasn’t used magic wands since he was a kid though, so at least there’s no danger from that angle. Just all the other angles. Danger is coming at him from 364° and he has not thought this through at all.

But he’s pretty certain that he got this right. The gun shouldn’t actually fire. Well, not fire a round, anyway. The great thing about Airsoft is that it still makes the same sound, whether or not it’s firing a round at your face at a stupidly high velocity.

At least he’s not trying this one where anyone can see.

Before Harry can back out, Chutney squeezes the trigger. The gun makes that familiar sound of decompressing air only the smallest fraction of a second before Harry’s face explods in white hot agony.

He claps both hands to his face, glad that he can’t see what had just happened. He knows there was blood and the worst fucking pain he’s ever felt in his life, and that’s enough for him. At least Chutney hasn’t bailed on him, which means someone is close enough to make sure that Harry isn’t going to die in his own back yard.

Not that he will. Died in his back yard, that is. Chutney probably would have bailed if they had used anything other than Airsoft. Hell, Harry wouldn’t have even blamed him for bailing as it was.

But he won’t die in his own back yard because they’re using cheap plastic rounds, and even though it had hit him right under his nose, it only barely even broke the skin. It does wind up leaving one hell of a bruise, though. And have you ever had to eat every one of your meals through a straw? It is the least fun thing to do on the entire goddamn planet.

* * *

Of course they got kidnapped. If he’s not getting shot at or framed for murder, he’s getting kidnapped. That’s just the turn his life took apparently, all because he ran away from getting shot at in the East Village.

Now he’s god knows where and has no fucking clue where the hell Perry is and if he gets shot at one more fucking time this weekend, he’s going to have to choke a bitch.

But right now, priority number fucking one is getting out of this place alive. Asshole Number One has the keys to the handcuffs on the desk, which even if Harry hadn’t been cuffed to a fucking chair, would still be out of reach. Asshole Number Two has left to go do god only knows what and wil l take god only knows how long, so Harry has to act fast. He has only the basic bare bones of a plan, but it’s the only one he’s got. What’s worse, he hasn’t done this in over a decade.

“Who’s M?” he asks.

Asshole Number One looks like he’s about to take a swing, so Harry gives this all he’s got.

“I’m being contacted by someone,” Harry says. “Mar…Mi… Mary?”

Asshole Number One actually stops, but he doesn’t say anything. Harry takes this for a good sign.

“Who is she? Mary wants to talk. She… She has something to say to you.”

Harry watches Asshole Number One for a long moment, not even having to fake having a hard time focusing on him. Seriously, what kind of fucker hits someone in the head with a beer can?

“You were close to her, weren’t you?” asks Harry. “Was she the one who taught you how to pray?”

Asshole Number One turns white as a fucking sheet and bolts out of the room. Harry would put every fucking penny to his name on Mary being the guy’s mother or grandmother after that. It was too fucking easy, but Harry doesn’t waste time thinking about it. He bounces his chair over to the table on the side of the room and after some very careful negotiation with the table, the chair he’s tied to, and his nearly immobile arms, he manages to get the key into prime lock-opening position.

He’s convinced that Asshole Number Two is going to come back before he’s able to actually unlock the cuffs, but he lucks out. In fact, he gets out of the room and into a long hallway before he’s spotted. It’s only through blind fucking luck that the room he stumbles into next has Perry in it, cuffed to a chair of his own.

“And what sort of hour do you call this?” Perry asks.

“Relax, it’s not even midnight yet,” Harry shoots back.

Before Harry’s able to get to him, Asshole Number Two is in the room and pointing a gun right at his face.

“Give me the key and I won’t shoot you,” says Asshole Number Two.

“Harry, don’t give him the key. He’s gonna shoot you anyway,” Perry warns.

“Give me the key,” Asshole Number Two repeats.

The words all run together, and as much as he’d like not to get shot, Harry knows that if he gives up the key, rocks fall and everyone dies. Well, not literal rocks. But the everyone dies part is almost definitely true.

So, Harry does the only thing he can think of. He pops the key into his mouth and swallows.

Both Perry and Asshole Number Two start shouting indignantly, and he’s pretty sure they’re both asking what the fuck is wrong with him. To be fair, he’s thinking the same thing right now. Not because of the key, but because he’s just realised that he had absolutely no exit plan. Furthermore, he knows exactly how to get out of this situation, and it is the last thing he wants to do.

Still, Asshole Number Two looks pretty fucking pissed off right now. Harry runs behind Perry and crouches slightly, trying to look like he’s attempting to hide. Considering just how pissed off Asshole Number Two looks, it’s not a difficult thing to pretend to do.

“This means nothing,” he hisses at Perry before reaching around and shoving his hands down the front of Perry’s trousers. “I swear to god if you get a boner, I’m cutting it off.”

“No. No, a little to the left,” Perry says, shifting slightly.

“What was—No, I don’t want to know.”

Finally, he finds the small gun Perry keeps in his underwear and empties its two shots into the man’s chest. It’s still not an easy thing for him to do, and it takes him a moment to realise where his hand still is.

“Was it good for you?” Perry asks flatly as Harry pulls his hand out and steps back to put some distance between the two of them.

Harry ignores him, which is a big fucking mistake, because it just gives Perry more time to talk.

“Now how the hell do you plan on getting me out of here, Einstein,” he demands. “Brilliant fucking idea, eating the key. Are you even from this fucking planet?”

Harry remembers the handcuffs and drops down to be able to reach them.

“It’s fine,” he says as the handcuffs fall loose. “Taken care of.”

He hands Perry the key and moves to the door to check the hall for signs of anyone else.

“Did you just… Did you just vomit this up and then give it to me?” Perry demands as he drops the offending object to the ground. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Harry says, and fucking hell, does he ever enjoy saying that to Perry. “Just a little sleight of mouth. Come on. Let’s get the fuck out of here before someone else shows up.”


End file.
